Back in June 2009, we interviewed Laura Czajkowski about her work in Ubuntu and FOSS. We followed up with her to see how she’s doing and her current involvement in Ubuntu.
First of all, how’s life? In 2009, you were hosting various community activities to promote FOSS- are you still participating in the same meetings or new ones?
It’s pretty good thanks, I’m now living in England and working for Canonical as the Launchpad Support Specialist for the last year which I love. I get to work with great people and work on an open source project, help users every day and I’m still involved in Ubuntu at the same time!
When I was living in Ireland I ran my own unconference OSSBarcamp. It’s been harder to keep that going since I moved to the UK, but I still help coordinate other conferences there and I’m still involved in the Irish LoCo Team. Since moving to the UK, I’ve been helping other groups with their conferences, from education conferences, ODF events, OGGCamp and now my latest unconference I’ve decided to run, HacknTalk. I’ve also been speaking at more conferences and also at schools to talk to students about women in technology, jobs that are out there and the different career paths people can take to get there.
Can you tell me about your current projects within Ubuntu and the teams you’re part of?
So since the last interview I’ve gotten more involved with Ubuntu. I’m now on the LoCo Council and also the Community Council. On any given week I work with loco teams and their queries, whether it be a hosting issue, or how they can request DVDs to conference packs or in some cases- stepping in and helping them work with one another. I love hearing the stories from the different communities and it’s this that makes me want to stay involved and help people promote Ubuntu.
Laura is currently employed by Canonical and living in the UK actively participating in LoCo events and is a member of the LoCo and Community Council.
Within the community council it’s different. It’s really given me an opportunity to see how other areas of the Ubuntu community are run and how people are involved in it. I had no idea about the Technical Board or what pitfalls it may encounter. I’ve learned about the Edubuntu project from talking to their council and how they are very much hands on and how they get work done. It’s great because it gives me ideas on how I can tweak my projects based on hearing about others experiences. The joys of an open source community is that we share our knowledge.
I’m involved in both the Ireland and UK LoCo teams, from participating in events to running global jams and getting to know the members of the community I talk to every day! I love to meet people their passion for Ubuntu is contagious and it really helps to influence others to get involved!
How will you be involved with Ubuntu moving forward? Do you have any specific projects/goals planned?
Interesting, I’d hope to always be involved in Ubuntu because it is for me one of the most welcoming and open communities out there and for that I am very grateful. It’s provided opportunities for me to learn and also I’ve been rather fortunate to gain employment at Canonical from it. I’ve always tried to lead a balance life work, advocacy, and my own hobbies. If I can keep this up I’ll always be involved. As for planned projects/goals, I’d like to continue my speaking to school kids and possibly do more of this. It was very rewarding seeing 16-18 year-olds get involved in small translations after learning how easy it was to use Launchpad and they could contribute to an Open Source project, even if they couldn’t code Yet! Hopefully my hackntalk unconference will take off and I’ll be running more of these in my spare time 
The original Full Circle Magazine Interview with Laura can be found at http://fullcirclemagazine.org/issue-26/
